by Barbara Rimkunas
This "Historically Speaking" column was published in the Exeter News-Letter on Friday, July 1, 2022.
It’s July and every Monday evening members of the Exeter Brass Band can be heard playing their hearts out at the bandstand in the center of town. Now celebrating 175 organized years, the band has been part of Exeter’s history since 1847. While poking through the archives with Garrett Pray of Exeter TV, we came across a handwritten musical score for a piece called The Exeter Grand March. Intrigued, Garrett took copies to bring to the band while the Exeter Historical Society took on the task of researching the piece.
There wasn’t much to go on. The score came to us in a tranche of materials from the band donated over a period of about five years. Each page is rubber-stamped with “Exeter Brass Band” at the top. The composer’s name is listed on each page – Nathan Barker, 1850. The questions came immediately. Who was Nathan Barker? Why was this written? Why does it say ‘Exeter Brass Band’ when that wasn’t the band’s name in 1850?
The Exeter Brass Band has gone through a few names. The first time a town band is mentioned in the Exeter News-Letter it’s called the Piscataqua Band. They played for the Fourth of July in 1848. “At noon the people came together at the Lower Meeting house – old men and women – young men and maidens – a procession was formed in order mentioned in the last. The Exeter Rifle Company on their first public parade, appeared to great advantage. They were handsomely uniformed, well equipped, well manned and well officered. THE PISCATAQUA BAND, in its full strength and numbers, discoursed sweet music.”
Several years later, in 1850, there was only one band in town, the Granite Brass Band. Still associated with the local militia, they appeared during muster days. “On Tuesday afternoon last, the Exeter Rifle Guards, commanded by Captain Gordon, and attended by the Granite Brass Band, paraded in this town with nearly full ranks for inspection.” The News-Letter said of the players, “the members of the Granite Brass Band are deserving of great credit, for the skill to which they have attained in the use of their instruments. Their performances are in every respect excellent, and well calculated to delight every person of musical taste. We are glad to learn that it is the intention of the band to favor our citizens with occasional performances in the open air in the course of the coming summer evenings.” They ran a notice offering “to furnish at short notice, MUSIC of the best composers and arrangers for Military and Picnic Processions, Excursions, etc.” This is surely the same band that would later become the Exeter Concert Band, Exeter Cornet Band, and (today) the Exeter Brass Band.
Nathan Barker, the composer of the piece, lived in Exeter for only a few years. We found him on the 1850 census living on Front Street with his wife, Susan, and 4-year old son, Henry. Barker was part of a musical family from Maine. During the 1840s, he and his family toured New England singing their brand of wholesome – and often abolitionist – choral music. Described in 1900 in a brochure published by the City of Lynn, Massachusetts, “the style of singing was very popular, consisting of descriptive, patriotic and household songs, sung with quaintness, sweetness and heartiness.” There isn’t a lot of information about the Barker Family Singers – they’re commonly overshadowed by another singing group called the Hutchinson Family Singers. A piece of sheet music published in 1848 for a song called Old Bay State, arranged by Nathan Barker, has on the cover images of Susan, Asa, Nathan, Thomas and Eben Barker.
Nathan appears to have been in Exeter to work with local talent for a group called the “Union Musical Association” at the Universalist Church. He’s listed in the census as “music professor” a fairly high title for a travelling musician. The group held several concerts while Barker was in here. He and Susan sang a duet (“admirably sung” said the News-Letter) and other local talent, listed as “Mrs. Folsom” and “Miss Batchelder” appeared. “We have much musical talent in this place; and Mr. Barker carries with him a mineral rod quick to discover it, and a mind prompt to refine, polish, and appreciate it.”
It was during this time that Barker wrote other local pieces. The sheet music was published by “Mr. Lovering” (either James or Thomas) and included Fairy Waltz, dedicated to his teenage neighbors, Martha and Helen Elliott, the Bugle Quick Step, inscribed to Mary Gould and finally our Exeter Grand March dedicated to John T. Gordon, the leader of the Granite Brass Band. Of it, the News-Letter comments, “it is music befitting its title, dignified and respectable, properly dedicated to a warm friend and good judge of music.” It was performed by the Granite Brass Band.
Barker lingered in Exeter for about a year. His family moved to Lynn, Massachusetts, which became their home base. The “Barker Family Singers” returned to the entertainment circuit throughout New England in the years just prior to and after the Civil War. Billing themselves as the ‘original’ Barker family, the group consisted of Nathan, Susan and their two sons, Henry and Charlie. Charlie, in particular, seemed to warm the audience. A review of one concert given in Windsor, Vermont relayed, “the performances of Master Charlie, a lad of ten years, were alone worth the price of admission.” Barker and Susan settled in Lynn for the remainder of their lives.
It is, perhaps, time to revive the Grand March of Exeter. Meanwhile, we’ve got the score here, at the Exeter Historical Society, safe and sound.
The Exeter Brass Band performed the Exeter Grand March on July 4, 2022. Watch Barbara’s recording here: https://bit.ly/ExeterGrandMarchExeterBrassBand.
Barbara Rimkunas is curator of the Exeter Historical Society. She was joined, while writing, by a small brown bat that left with some encouragement. Look for History Bat in the skies over Exeter. Join the Exeter Historical Society online at: www.exeterhistory.org (no bats were harmed during the writing of this article)